James Huang is Heading to Substack

[Angryasian]

Originally Posted by litcrazy

James, do you feel like you have a special niche that means brands are okay with you being candid?
It seems like other sites definitely sway position such that it seems they choose to say nothing at all rather than say something negative. Their version of integrity is to omit negative reviews rather than speak disingenuously.
Your approach feels akin to the push to publish negative results in science.

Beats the hell out of me.

When I was originally hired at Cyclingnews back in 2006, I received very little guidance aside from "write product reviews" (my direct boss was crazy busy at the time). I was certainly still getting my feet wet, but "write product reviews" certainly seemed to me to include both good stuff and bad stuff, and no one ever told me differently. I think one benefit to me working remote all these years (and almost always for titles that weren't based in the US) was that I was perhaps left alone to my own devices almost by default, and maybe now I have a sufficiently large following that brands still want to hear what I have to say, whether good or bad? No idea.

Regardless, I think I've been pretty lucky in that respect.

[JSL]

I was a paid up member at CT and then EC solely because of James' podcasts. A lot of people really appreciate his work and I hope it pans out for him. He has a wealth of experience, a curious mind, and is an excellent podcast host.